Low End Mac Archive for October 21

October 21 in Apple and Low End Mac History

In a move that reshaped laptops from this date forward, Apple rolled out the PowerBook 100, 140, and 170. The first notebooks to include a built-in trackball in front of the keyboard. This Apple innovation has influenced every new laptop design since. Also see Birth of the PowerBook: How Apple Took Over the Portable Market in 1991, PowerBook History, and 20 Years Ago, Apple's PowerBook Redefined Notebook Computing.
Macintosh Classic II introduced to replace venerable Mac SE/30. In comparison to the SE/30, the Classic II has a narrow data bus (16 bits vs 32 bits), lower memory ceiling (10 MB vs 128 MB), and 32-bit clean ROMs.
Quadra 700 and 900 introduced. First Macs with 68040 CPU, which provided over twice the performance of the 68030/68882 at the same clock speed.

The 1.7 GHz G4, Rodney O. Lain, Things Macintosh. Apple should market the G4 by "Pentium equivalent" MHz.

A closer look at Apple's financials, Dan Knight, Mac Musings. Don't panic. Look at the breakdown of unit sales and be impressed.

Mac OS X and a beige G3, Dan Knight, 10 Forward, 10.21. A simple hard drive upgrade turns into one nightmare after another and days of downtime.
4 useful utilities for OS X, Evan Kleiman, Mac Daniel. Great alternatives to the CPU monitor, missing location manager, simple calculator, and limited Get Info.
Serial sniper a product of postmodern moral anarchy, Charles W. Moore, Miscellaneous Ramblings. A society without moral absolutes undermines the value of human life while providing the freedom for murderers to act.

Notes for Windows users who want to hate iTunes, Jeff Adkins, The Lite Side. "To help out those poor Windows users who can't find anything to hate in iTunes, I thought I'd offer up my own list of stuff they can adopt in their scathing reviews...."

The October 2005 Power Mac G5 value equation, Dan Knight, Mac Musings. The newest Power Macs have dual-core CPUs, but how does value compare with the discontinued models?
iNavigate: Why Apple should develop a media center for today's cars, Adam Robert Guha, Apple Archive. Integrating the iPod with car stereos has been pretty hit-and-miss. Apple should step in and create the iPod of car stereos.
Improved PowerBooks, flash for fast booting laptops, new laptop stand, 400 MHz G3 WallStreet upgrade, 550 MHz G4 Pismo upgrade, and more, Charles W Moore, The 'Book Review. Apple updates 15" and 17" PowerBooks with high res displays. Also IOGear's new USB 2.0 CardBus adapter, Milano's new case for 12" 'Books, and bargain 'Books from $399 to $1,949.
Apple rejoins top 5, new Power Macs, iMac G4 upgrades from $449, iMic USB adapter, and more, Mac News Review. Also 120 GB to go in stainless steel case, no VESA mount for new iMac from Apple, and user-configurable RAID from Maxtor.

The Late 2009 iMac value equation, Dan Knight, Mac Musings. With larger 16:9 displays, the new iMacs bring a lot of value to the table, but there are some close-out bargains.
The Late 2009 Mac mini value equation, Dan Knight, Mac Musings. We called the Mac mini 'the best value in desktop Macs' two months ago, and the refreshed Mac mini only improves that value.
The Late 2009 MacBook value equation, Dan Knight, Mac Musings. The redesigned consumer MacBook uses unibody construction, gains LED backlighting and battery life, but loses FireWire.
A useful Eudora feature, FireWire ports in Apple displays, having enough RAM, and more, Charles Moore, Miscellaneous Ramblings. Also upgrading from Panther to Leopard, Low End Mac's new PC swap list, and reasons to avoid QuickPADs.

iLife 11: Another nail in the PowerPC coffin, Dan Bashur, Apple, Tech, and Gaming. With the release of iLife 11, Apple has left even the newest PowerPC Macs behind.
Herding cats: Why Android is no threat to Apple, Frank Fox, Stop the Noiz. Google and its partners in the Open Handset Alliance are destroying what should be a unified Android market.
The gloves are coming off: The new platform war, Austin Leeds, Apple Everywhere. Microsoft won the PC Platform War but is now losing share. Apple has the lead in the Tablet Platform War, but can it hold it against Google?

Siri as revolutionary as the Mac, 4th US iPhone carrier announced, iPhone 4S teardowns, and more, iOS News Review. Also iPhone 4S doesn't benchmark as fast as Apple claims, iPad mini rumored to take on Kindle Fire, 50 GB of free cloud storage, and more.
Record Mac sales despite 'iPad cannibalization', MacBook Pro refresh appears imminent, and more, The 'Book Review. Also Intel Ivy Bridge CPUs to reduce power consumption, Apple acknowledges lost video issue with 15" 2010 MacBook Pro, ultrabooks look to hybrid hard drives, and more.
Best Mac quarter ever, hate mongers picket Jobs memorial, Tex-Edit Plus Lion support, and more, Mac News Review. Also are Macs in decline?, RescueCom computer reliability report, Security Update for Snow Leopard, and more.
Happy 10th birthday, iPod, Low End Mac Round Table. It's hard to believe that ten years ago Apple was just a computer company, and now iPods, iPhones, and iPads are its biggest business.